Comments on: Sussex Chemistry Saved!

By: Nigel

Nigel — Fri, 19 May 2006 13:56:39 +0000

Hey have you seen this

http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2030031

with all the background to it here

By: Steinn Sigurdsson

Steinn Sigurdsson — Wed, 17 May 2006 17:41:57 +0000

Anne,
The reality is that the physics and mathematics faculty has been cut in half, many fewer degree options are being offered, enrollment is sharply down and one of Sussex’s attractions for undergrad - the broad range of minors and double degrees is mostly gone.
MAPS and MOLS schools were closed and amalgamated and re-amalgamated because they weren’t viable any longer as coherent units. Not enough students and shrinking faculty lines. Folding chemistry in with physics and then moving physics into engineering and chemistry into bio is not a good sign. For one thing the senior administration of the schools will have very different priorities from the departments, and there will be pressure to focus on service courses.
Looking at the faculty, Sussex seems to have lost solid state experimental groups and nuclear physics as well as particle physics. Cosmology has grown.

I don’t know why enrollment in physical sciences is down in US and western Europe, but it is real and damaging and the universities are reacting to it by retreating into “informatics” and psychology.

By: adam

adam — Wed, 17 May 2006 14:35:11 +0000

I had heard that undergrad enrollment for physics at Sussex is currently pretty (alarmingly) low. Is that the case, does anyone know?

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 17 May 2006 12:51:41 +0000

Nicely put Anne. I was intending to add a comment clarifying my understanding of the extremely high quality of the parts of the Sussex physics department that I know. Whenever I travel to England, Sussex is one of the places I immediately think of being sure to visit.

By: Anne Green

Anne Green — Wed, 17 May 2006 12:00:07 +0000

As another ex-Sussex (PhD) student I’d like to comment on some of the comments….

Sussex has a rather odd Schools system where departments are grouped together in schools. Over the last decade or so physics has moved from MAPS (Mathematical and Physical Sciences) to CPES (Chemistry, Physics and Environmental Science) and more recently to SciTech (Science and Technology) [hopefully I’ve remembered the acronyms correctly]. From the point of view of students, in the sciences at least, these groupings have no real practical consequences. I’m sure that there are administrative and financial consequences (which as a student I was blissfully unaware of….), but it’s simply not true to say that “The physics department was effectively shut a few years ago”.

The loss of staff from the particle theory group over the last year or so is clearly a bad thing for the physics department and if the group were to die something very special would be lost. However, as far as I’m aware at least, the outcome is far from certain.

The science departments at Sussex are, along with those at many other UK universities, experiencing tough times. There are some excellent physicists at Sussex doing excellent science. Spreading mis-information and presenting speculation as fact is not going improve their position.

By: Pier Stefano Corasaniti

Pier Stefano Corasaniti — Tue, 16 May 2006 22:13:42 +0000

Hi Mark,
thanks for pointing out the news, it is great that at least Chemistry has been saved,
it would have been even greater if they could have saved the theoretical physics group…instead of triggering the diaspora of its faculties. I got my PhD at Sussex, it was a fantastic experience, the close interaction between the astronomy centre and the particle theory one created a really ideal environment for cosmology. I still remember with nostalgy the positive, friendly, joyful, creative atmosphere of the group. Now it is only a memory of the past.
Hope things will turn for better down there…

By: Steinn Sigurdsson

Steinn Sigurdsson — Tue, 16 May 2006 19:26:14 +0000

I did my BSc at Sussex (”Q”).
The physics department was effectively shut a few years ago when the School for Mathematics and Physical Sciences (MAPS) was abolished, and physics, math and astro were moved into Engineering - now renamed “School of Science and Technology”.

Similarly chemistry’s path to demise came when the old MOLS school was shut down and the chemistry department moved into Life Sciences.

The physics department had 33 faculty - 5 professors, 13 readers and 15 lecturers. Astronomy had 5 faculty, for a total of 38 tenure lines.
Current department has a total of 21 physics and astronomy tenure track people.
8 of which are in astronomy.

There are 12 faculty in mathematics now, there used to be 27 tenure track people.

Sussex used to be one of the few UK universities that offered a double honours Mathematical Physics BSc (MPhys now I guess). They apparently no longer do so. Nor is Mathematics with “minor” in Physics offered.

Bastards.

By: adam

adam — Tue, 16 May 2006 18:01:16 +0000

Thatcher’s government had a part to play in the ongoing sabotage of the British education system, although Blair’s lot have pulled ahead, I think.

Although Sussex’s department has been saved (it seems), falling numbers enrolling for those courses across the country are inevitably going to mean departments merging or shutting, if the educating aspect of the Department is dominant (of course, if it’s just about the research bucks, that’s different, but I’m not sure it works that way at UK universities so much). Shutting or merging some departments isn’t even a bad decision, although the matter of which ones suffer the knife is obviously a difficult one.

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 16 May 2006 15:55:10 +0000

Can we blame Thatcher for this?

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 16 May 2006 14:11:34 +0000

I don’t know the details of these cases so can’t comment. However, as you can see, when the Sussex case was looked at by a qualified panel and not an individual administrator, it was seen to be a poor decision.